It's amazing the things NFL teams can do when they're not paying a franchise quarterback.
Don't misunderstand. It's always great to have a franchise quarterback. It makes things much more simple when it comes to winning.
But when a team doesn't have a boatload of money invested in its quarterback room, it can afford to do things such as make T.J. Watt the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL or make Minkah Fitzpatrick the league's highest-paid safety, as the Steelers did on Wednesday.
Some will look at the four-year, $73.6-million deal the Steelers gave to Fitzpatrick -- which includes $36 million guaranteed -- and say it's too much money to pay for a safety.
Thing is, it's not their money. The Steelers have the cap space -- some $20 million heading into the day -- to get this deal done. They want to keep Fitzpatrick, a two-time All-Pro since they acquired him via trade in 2019 from the Dolphins. And Fitzpatrick wanted to stay.
It's the perfect storm.
And unlike the Watt negotiations last year, this didn't carry over long into training camp. The Steelers were much tighter against the salary cap last year than they were this time around.
They didn't need to play salary cap gymnastics to get the deal done because they had the cap space. It made this much more simple.
In three seasons with the Steelers, Fitzpatrick has appeared in 46 games, making 224 tackles, 11 interceptions, 27 pass defenses, three forced fumbles, four fumble recoveries and scoring a pair of touchdowns while being named first-team All-Pro twice.
He works as hard as anyone on the team, and is universally respected in that locker room.
If you're not going to pay that guy, you might as well not be in business.
• This takes a "hold-in" off the table for Fitzpatrick.
We saw that happen last season with Watt, as he took part in position drills but worked off to the side when the team portion of practice took place.
The Steelers weren't worried about Fitzpatrick missing practice time. They know he puts the work in. Long after their final minicamp practice last week, Fitzpatrick was one of the last guys on the field still working.
But it does mean he'll get a full training camp in with some new players around him -- linebacker Myles Jack and cornerback Levi Wallace.
The Steelers know Fitzpatrick is special.
"I have zero concerns about Minkah. Minkah is a unicorn," defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said last week. "He’s always in great shape. He loves football. He’s got all the stuff you want a guy to have. I have zero worries about it. That stuff will work itself out."
Little did Austin know it would be this quickly.
This does put a little more pressure on Austin and company to have a bounce-back season on defense. You can't have the highest-paid defensive player in the league in Watt and the highest-paid safety in Fitzpatrick -- along with Cam Heyward -- and have a defense that is middle-of-the-pack.
• Fitzpatrick's $18.4-million per year average makes him the highest-paid safety, bringing him in about $700,000 more per year than Seattle's Jamal Adams.
It's interesting that this deal got done just a day after it was announced the Chargers' Derwin James wouldn't be participating in many team drills at his team's minicamp because he had undergone labrum surgery.
It was widely believed Fitzpatrick might want to wait for James to get a new deal -- and vice versa -- because both wanted the other to set the new salary bar for safeties.
But with James dealing with a labrum issue -- after also missing time earlier in his career -- he might not surpass Fitzpatrick's contract.
That does not mean, however, that Fitzpatrick will be the gold standard at the position long.
Adams lasted as No. 1 for a year. Someone else will come along in the next year and surpass Fitzpatrick's deal.
• The Steelers can now move on to other deals they want to get done before the start of the 2022 season.
I would expect them to at least attempt to sign wide receiver Diontae Johnson to an extension, while placekicker Chris Boswell also could get a new deal.
Boswell's deal will be the easier of the two.
Boswell currently has the sixth-highest cap hit of any placekicker in the league at $4.9 million. The Raven's Justin Tucker leads the way with a $5.9-million hit, though his contract averages $5 million per year.
Boswell's last deal averaged $4.2 million per year. The Steelers should be able to work something out that makes Boswell happy. And I doubt he'll want to be the highest-paid kicker in the league -- though I wouldn't blame him if he wanted that.
After all, the cap is going to go up considerably over the next few years. Today's massive deal is tomorrow's bargain.
• As for Johnson, that could get a little more sticky.
He currently has a cap hit of just over $3 million with a base salary of $2.79 million this year. Bumping that to the $20-million range -- the going rate for wide receivers -- makes things tricky.
The key, however, is the guaranteed money.
I just don't think that deal will get done because of the logistics of it all.
That doesn't mean the Steelers can't keep Johnson, should they so choose. They could still use a tag on him at the end of this season, but with all of the big wide receiver deals signed this offseason, the franchise tag for receivers, which was $18.42 million this year -- will be north of $20 million next year.
That's probably not going to be an option, either.
And Johnson will be awfully attractive on the open market, given some of the deals other receivers have gotten.
• That said, the Steelers will have the cap space in 2023 should they choose to sign Johnson to an extension.
But they have always had a pecking order when it comes to contracts. Nobody on this team is going to make more money than Watt. Heyward is No. 2 in importance, as his $22.25 cap hit in 2023 shows.
And now, Fitzpatrick is No. 3.
So, a new deal for Johnson would likely have to be at or slightly less than the $18.4 million per year Fitzpatrick just got.
Is that realistic? Perhaps.
I don't get the sense Johnson will want to break the bank or be in the top-10 when it comes to wide receiver pay. He will just want the going rate for his position.
And that is the going rate.
• Fitzpatrick doesn't turn 26 until Nov. 17, so he could conceivably be in line to get a third contract down the road from the Steelers -- if you consider his rookie deal their contract.
Remember, the Steelers got him as a complete bargain since the Dolphins paid his signing bonus as a rookie.
The Steelers have paid him $5.7 million in his first three seasons with the team, while the Dolphins paid him $10.67 million.
• When I asked Art Rooney II how difficult it was for him to give the OK to make that deal following the 2019 season, he said he did a lot of pacing to come to that decision to trade a future first-round draft pick, going against years of franchise precedent.
But this contract shows that if Rooney had the opportunity to do it again, he would. And he wouldn't blink.
• Johnson, by the way, has made $3.2 million with the Steelers in his first three seasons.
This is the problem with the whole draft process.
If you go in the first round, you're going to make really serious money. If not, you don't get paid until that second contract.
Now, to be sure, $3.2 million is nothing to sneeze at. But when taxes, an agent, union fees and everything else are taken out, it's more likely about half of that amount that Johnson has taken home.
So, if Johnson wants to max out his value, can anyone blame him? He's performed like a first-round draft pick to this point in his career. He's just not been compensated like one.
• Consider that N'Keal Harry, the 32nd player selected in the 2019 draft when Johnson was the second pick of the third round, has already pocketed nearly $8.4 million in his career.
Harry has 57 career catches for 598 yards and four touchdowns. Johnson has 254 receptions -- 32 more than any other player from the 2019 draft -- for 2,764 yards and 20 touchdowns.
D.K. Metcalf, A.J. Brown and Terry McLaurin are the only players with more receiving yards from that 2019 draft, while Metcalf, Brown and Marquise Brown are the only players with more receiving touchdowns.
And remember, Johnson's rookie season, he had 14 games of Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges at quarterback.
